Electric Cars

rockits

rockits

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stindig said:
rockits - it's great that your electricity supplier manages to tunnel all of the renewable atoms to your house, leaving all the normal atoms to go elsewhere to houses that haven't selected a green supplier :cool:
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I am only one person and can only make my own decisions I'm afraid. I wish others would be more conscious of the decisions they make and their impacts.

I'm off to go to buy a water bottle I can re-use and refill water from the tap rather than using one use plastic water bottles
 
stindig

stindig

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No offence intended. I was merely referring to the fact that energy suppliers happily take extra money for providing 'green' energy - but what do they actually do different? All of the available green energy is already in the grid and must therefore be supplied equally to those that don't select 'green' energy?
 
V

Vince2

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daverichardson said:
We have had a massive house building program in my area over the last 10 years or so.
Not one has PV on the roof. It may be inefficient but should last 20 years
Lip service is paid to insulation, Ground pumps etc could have been installed before the buildings were made etc
Governments have missed a trick here imho
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Couldn't agree more. All these new houses being built, should have made the developers fit PV tiles to all houses and make them have south facing roofs.
All houses consume electric so should be built to generate some back. Wasted opportunity.

Make the most of our cars, they will soon be history (unfortunately)

Incidentally, French are banning high polluting cars from cities for the heat wave rated 3 or worse. My 2012 GTS scored a 1 on their pollution rating last year! One off 0 for electric cars!!!
 
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midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

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Petrol cars are
stindig said:
No offence intended. I was merely referring to the fact that energy suppliers happily take extra money for providing 'green' energy - but what do they actually do different? All of the available green energy is already in the grid and must therefore be supplied equally to those that don't select 'green' energy?
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Yeah never got that...'dirty' electrons derived from coal are mixed up with 'clean electrons derived from PV/SOlar/Biomass etc so how do you know that your electrickery is clean and CO2 free?

On another point Petrol cars are getting a lot more efficient in terms of mpg alone. My Seat Leon I've been running can easily do 55-60 (sometimes 65!) mpg were as my old 2003 Seat Ibiza TDI got 50mpg. A 1996 Rover 214SLi could only get 30 mpg. Not an exact comparison but petrol cars are getting more frugal. I think I read somewhere that we may be at a point of Peak Demand for petrol simply because of the efficiencies of engines etc.
 
Zep

Zep

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The point of green energy tarrifs is that they make sure (or say they do) that enough green stuff goes in one end to make sure that it is equivalent to 100% green based on the number of customers they have on that tarrif.

It is basically a vehicle to promote investment in green energy.
 
Wack61

Wack61

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rockits said:
I am only one person and can only make my own decisions I'm afraid. I wish others would be more conscious of the decisions they make and their impacts.

I'm off to go to buy a water bottle I can re-use and refill water from the tap rather than using one use plastic water bottles
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costco sell 40 x 500ml bottles of water for £3.22, everything including the plastic wrap is recyclable so I really don't see the problem with bottled water.

the nissan leaf Paddy McGuiness used this week on top gear was 8 years old and had an effective range of 35 miles so in reality your 30k electric car will either be scrap at 8 years or need a new battery , the environmental impact of producing new batteries or new cars at that rate once they're in common use must be very high.

I wonder what percentage of conventional 2011 and older cars are still in daily use
 
midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

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Wack61 said:
costco sell 40 x 500ml bottles of water for £3.22, everything including the plastic wrap is recyclable so I really don't see the problem with bottled water.

the nissan leaf Paddy McGuiness used this week on top gear was 8 years old and had an effective range of 35 miles so in reality your 30k electric car will either be scrap at 8 years or need a new battery , the environmental impact of producing new batteries or new cars at that rate once they're in common use must be very high.

I wonder what percentage of conventional 2011 and older cars are still in daily use
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I see a lot of Priuses being used as taxis going up and down the middle lane (only) of the M23, and I've often wondered if their batteries are still serviceable or are they just using the petrol motor. My guess is that the taxi companies buy old EV and get away with not paying congestion charge as they are electric. Call me cynical, but a petrol car lugging dead weight isn't good for the environment.
 
2b1ask1

2b1ask1

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midlifecrisis said:
I see a lot of Priuses being used as taxis going up and down the middle lane (only) of the M23, and I've often wondered if their batteries are still serviceable or are they just using the petrol motor. My guess is that the taxi companies buy old EV and get away with not paying congestion charge as they are electric. Call me cynical, but a petrol car lugging dead weight isn't good for the environment.
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Absolutely this Martin, I use Uber quite a bit when I’m in town, I have not done a single yard in a Prius on batteries, even the stop start function is deactivated and because they have such a useless performance on petrol they are truly awful for the environment.
 
alfatwo

alfatwo

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Ewan said:
So far, in 8 months and 7000 miles of ownership, my PHEV Rangie has run on electric only mode for 17% of the time apparently. Which is many hundreds of “free” and “clean” miles. Better than nothing.

The overall mpg is 36, so exactly double what I used to get from my old Supercharged petrol Rangie.

The latest electric/petrol hybrid Rangie is several steps better again, so that’s what I’ll change to next time.
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I hear the Chinese and the government are thinking of building the next nuclear power station down on the Dorset coast due to the unprecedented power demand for the up and coming EV's ;)!

Dave
 
GeoffCapes

GeoffCapes

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midlifecrisis said:
PV using visible light might be inefficient in terms of the broad band of the electromagnetic spectrum but they do have an impact on the overall load. Tesla have produced roof tiles to act as PV too so progress will be made in diversifying our energy production.
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Tesla are just copying the rest of the market, solar panels that look like roof tiles have been out for years.
I've even got them on my house.
 
rockits

rockits

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9,180
stindig said:
No offence intended. I was merely referring to the fact that energy suppliers happily take extra money for providing 'green' energy - but what do they actually do different? All of the available green energy is already in the grid and must therefore be supplied equally to those that don't select 'green' energy?
Click to expand...
I wasn't taking any offence and didn't see it that way. We are currently just changing to a new supplier who are one of the cheapest and using renewable sources as well so win win.
 
rockits

rockits

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Wack61 said:
costco sell 40 x 500ml bottles of water for £3.22, everything including the plastic wrap is recyclable so I really don't see the problem with bottled water.
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I never really thought it was much of a problem either tbh. HFW's program made me think some more though. It is more the fact they are mainly single use. Also that many don't get recycled even though they are recyclable. If you think how many resources are used to produce them and to recycle them they make nonsense for most applications as alternatives are better.

The water bottle I've bought will keep my liquid cold/cool and will last a while I guess. Coupled with the cost saving of using tap water I'm much happier ditching the plastic bottles water.

I also wonder what percentage of bottled water is actually consumed 100%. A fair bit seems to be left unconsumed, wasted and disposed of.

We need to find alternatives as when the oils runs out plastic won't be an option.

When you start to be made aware that 83% of a baby wipe is plastic you start to realise how big and far reaching the issue is.
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

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We're intending to buy a soda-stream since I prefer fizzy water. But no idea if it's meaningfully greener than buying it from Waitrose

C
 
safrane

safrane

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Wonder how much energy from manufacturer and installation of a full size wind turbine, including the 100s of tones for the concrete base is.

How long until it repays that debt to the environment.

I alao read that it takes >15years for solar panels to reach payback... and they last... c15 years.

Yet more ways to spend money and fill China's coffers.
 
Wanderer

Wanderer

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safrane said:
Wonder how much energy from manufacturer and installation of a full size wind turbine, including the 100s of tones for the concrete base is.

How long until it repays that debt to the environment.

I alao read that it takes >15years for solar panels to reach payback... and they last... c15 years.

Yet more ways to spend money and fill China's coffers.
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I got my solar panels for free, previous buyer ordered them and pulled out and I reaped the benefit...
 
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